IRS Seizes Car from War Tax Resister

Student Loses Car For Not Paying Tax

Austin,
Tex.
(AP) —
Arnold Cuba, who lost his car to tax men after he refused to pay a telephone
charge in protest against the Indochina War, says he will try to buy the car
back at a public auction.

Cuba, a University of Texas junior, said Direct Action, the antiwar group
that encouraged him not to pay the tax, also is going to try to raise money
to get the car back.

Cuba returned from classes last Wednesday to find his yellow
1971 Volkswagen missing and a notice from the
Internal Revenue Service that his car — which he bought new
last year for $2,400 — had been taken because he
refused to pay a $2.44 telephone tax.

The bill has now grown to $5.53, and he also owes $29.50 for hauling and
storage of the car and said he will be charged for other “incidental” fees
by the
IRS.

An IRS
spokesman said the car will be sold at public austin [sic],
and the $2.44 will be deducted from the amount paid for the car and the
remainder given to Cuba.

If Cuba’s bid is the highest, however, he will get the car back by just
paying the $2.44 and fees.

“I plan to bid what I think it is worth… if someone else bids higher, I will
make a profit,” Cuba said.

Kevin Carson at the Center for a Stateless Society
found a quote to this effect from
Julian Assange, the current spokesman and editor-in-chief for Wikileaks,
which has been doing a bang-up job of freelance declassification of
U.S. classifed war
documents:

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear
and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in
minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in
cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline
resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands
adaption.

Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems
are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by
their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand,
mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace
them with more open forms of governance.

So when you hear people discussing the value of the leaks, remember that the
value may not only be in what specifically was leaked, but in the leakage
itself, and in subsequent efforts to plug the leaks.

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